Rhamnomia Dubia

Rhamnomia dubia (拉缘蝽).

A large leaf-footed bug, they are unsteady flyers and slow crawlers. In warm weather, a closer examination of vegetation along the footpaths on Yuelu Mountain will usually turn up a few of them, perched on leaf and stem.

Female Greater Blue Skimmer

Greater Blue Skimmer (Orthetrum melania, 异色灰蜻). Female.

Another 'blue' dragonfly in which the females are in fact black and yellow. There are many of them out now, both by the lakes and throughout the forests, vigilant destroyers of nasty mosquitoes.

Friendship and Love

Itaque amicitia semper prodest, amor aliquando etiam nocet.

So friendship is always beneficial; love rather is sometimes harmful.

Seneca the Younger, Epistles, XXXV.1. My translation.

Female Deielia Phaon

Deielia Phaon (异色多纹蜻).

One of the smaller dragonflies of the summer ponds, the largest fall a little short of 5cm in length. The females have alternating black and yellow vertical stripes on their breasts, and a row of yellow vertical spots in the centre and on both sides of the back of abdominal segments 2 to 7. Some females are fully yellow and black, while others have also have some shade of powdery blue.

Books and Food Enough

quid sentire putas? quid credis, amice, precari?
sit mihi quod nunc est, etiam minus, et mihi vivam
quod superest aevi, si quid superesse volunt di;
sit bona librorum et provisae frugis in annum
copia, neu fluitem dubiae spe pendulus horae.

What do you think I think about? What do you think, my friend, that I pray for? That I may keep what I have or even less, and to live for myself for whatever part of life remains for me, if the gods will it to remain; may I have an ample supply of books and provisions to last through the year; and may I not waver, hanging on to the hope of the fickle hour.

Horace, Epistles, I.18.108-110. My translation.

Lamprosema Tampiusalis

Lamprosema tampiusalis (黄环蚀叶野螟).

A fairly common moth on Yuelu Mountain: resting in the afternoon by one of the remaining woodland streams, I saw many of them fluttering about or perching on the moist rocks.

Longing for Home

ἀλλὰ καὶ ὣς ἐθέλω καὶ ἐέλδομαι ἤματα πάντα
οἴκαδέ τ᾽ ἐλθέμεναι καὶ νόστιμον ἦμαρ ἰδέσθαι.
εἰ δ᾽ αὖ τις ῥαίῃσι θεῶν ἐνὶ οἴνοπι πόντῳ,
τλήσομαι ἐν στήθεσσιν ἔχων ταλαπενθέα θυμόν:
ἤδη γὰρ μάλα πολλὰ πάθον καὶ πολλὰ μόγησα
κύμασι καὶ πολέμῳ: μετὰ καὶ τόδε τοῖσι γενέσθω.

Yet even so every day I desire and long to reach my home and to see the day of my return. And if some god would break me on the wine-red sea, I shall endure it, as I hold in my breast a soul that endures great afflictions: as before this I have suffered much and endured much in waves and in war; let this be one of those thing.

Homer, Odyssey, V.219-224. My translation.

Female Oriental Blue Dasher

Oriental Blue Dasher (Brachydiplax chalybea, 蓝额疏脉蜻).

The female of the species is yellow with distinctive black markings. Sometimes this dragonfly is called a rufous-backed marsh hawk or a yellow-patched lieutenant, the latter name is most appropriate for both genders.

The Silkworm and the Spider

Tomás de Iriarte (1750-1791)
‘El gusano de seda y la araña’

Trabajando un Gusano su capullo,
La Araña, que texía á toda prisa,
De esta suerte le habló con falsa risa
Mui propia de su orgullo:
¿Qué dice de mi tela el seor Gusano?
Esta mañana la empecé temprano,
Y ya estará acabada á mediodía.
Mire qué sutil es, mire qué bella....
El Gusano con sorna respondía:
Usted tiene razon: así sale ella.

‘The Silkworm and the Spider’

While a Worm was working on his cocoon,
The Spider, who was weaving fast,
Spoke to him in mock jest,
What does Mr. Worm have to say about my web?
I started early this morning
And it will be finished by noon.
See how delicate it is, behold how beautiful....
The Worm replied sarcastically:
You are right: that is how it comes out.

Tomas de Iriarte, Fabulas literarias, ed. by Jaime Fitzmaurice-Kelly (Oxford: OUP, 1917; 1782), p. 5. My translation.

Green-tinge Spiderlily

Green-tinge Spiderlily (Hymenocallis speciosa, 蜘蛛兰).

People have brought any different new plants to Yuelu Mountain over thousands of years. This Caribbean plant grows along the wall of one of the war memorials, and a few renegade plants have spread elsewhere nearby.

Another Paddy Frog

The few ponds around Yuelu Mountain often contain vociferous frogs and toads throughout the summer. This frog however was out on a quiet trekking across a dry hillside. It is some member of the Fejervarya genus, perhaps a Hong Kong rice-paddy frog (fejervarya multistriata, 泽陆蛙), though the taxonomic classification of this and related species has not been fully settled.

The Common World of Children

 The common world of children, that is something entirely different. A lonely child in his game forgets himself and everything that is round him, and his oblivion is beyond time. Into the common game of children wider spheres are drawn, and their mutual world is governed by the laws of the seasons. No amount of boredom will make boys play marbles in summer. You play marbles in spring when the frost goes; that is a grave and indisputable law, like that which commands the snowdrops to flower, or mothers to make Easter cakes. Only later can you play at touch or hide and seek, while the school holidays are the time for adventure and escapades: into the field to catch grasshoppers, or to bathe on the sly in the river. No self-respecting fellow will ever feel in summer the urge to make a bonfire; that’s not done until towards the autumn, at the time when kites are flown. Easter, summer holidays, and Christmas, fairs, village wakes, and feasts, these are important dates and big watersheds in time. The year of children has its routine, its ritual is governed by the seasons; a lonely child plays with eternity, while a pack of children play with time.

Karel Čapek, Three Novels, trans. by M. and R. Weatherall (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1948), p. 331 [An Ordinary Life, 1934].

Virgil Under the Pillow

Hildebert of Lovardin (1056-1133)

Quadam autem nocte, dum fatigatis artubus modico sopore vir Dei consuleret, videre visus est decubantium sub capite suo serpentium multitudinem, caeteraque diversi generis reptilia, quibus ille perturbatus, somnum continuare non poterat. Dehinc amoto pulvinari, librum Maronis reperit, eoque projecto, somnum duxit tranquillum. Apta rei visio, cum nihil aliud quam quaedam venena sint fabulae poetarum.

What is more, one night, as the man of God attended to his wearied limbs by sleeping a little, he seemed to see a multitude of snakes lying under his head, as well as other reptiles of various sorts. Distressed by them, he was unable to continue sleeping. Then, after removing his pillow, he found a book of Virgil’s poetry. Upon tossing it aside, he slept peacefully. The vision is well suited to the matter, since the inventions of the poets are nothing if not venomous.

Vita Sancti Hugonis, 18 in Patrologia Latina, vol. 159, col. 872A-B. Cited in The Virgilian Tradition: The First Fifteen Hundred Years, ed. by Jan M. Ziolkowski & Michael C.J. Putnam (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2008), p.897. Jan M. Ziolkowski’s translation.

Problepsis Albidior

Problepsis albidior (白眼尺蛾).

I spotted this geometer moth, resting in plain view, during an evening walk in Wangling Park. The last time I noticed one was May of last year, its orange and silver spots are memorable.